


I'll Be Here, Too

by desperationandgin



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 04:13:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2177460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desperationandgin/pseuds/desperationandgin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina is drunk and hurt and angry, and Snow tries to talk to her. Set some time after the events in 3x22.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Be Here, Too

If Snow White doesn’t get out of her house, Regina thinks she might try to kill her all over again.

"I’m not leaving, Regina."

"No one wants you here." Regina’s words are as sharp as she can manage after half a bottle of scotch. She is breaking and letting herself shatter every time she replays Robin embracing his wife as Regina just stands there, dumbfounded and waiting for him to turn back to her, to realize  _she’s still there,_  the woman he kissed and spoke of timing to. The woman who bared her heart to him by placing it in his hand.

"How much have you had to drink?"

"Today?"

She doesn’t miss the sigh of disappointment, but if the princess thinks there’s one ounce of caring left in Regina’s body, she’d be mistaken.

"Get out. Of my house." Her words are short and clipped, slightly slurred, and she’s pointing with the bottle - no glass, just the bottle - toward the front door. "Don’t you have a baby who needs your endless attention?"

Snow isn’t deterred, not at all. “David and Emma are watching him, and they can manage just fine.”

"Careful. Or she’ll do something to erase your child from time, or ruin some part of you that you thought was finally safe."

"Regina, you know she wasn’t trying to hurt you. She didn’t even know who Marian was. She thought she was helping."

There’s a muffled snort then into the bottle as Regina pulls and pulls, harsh alcohol burning her throat before she speaks again. “Sounds familiar. You were only trying to help. Your entire family. Only trying to help.”

There’s a brave step forward then, hand taking the bottle right out of Regina’s grasp, and the older woman is so shocked that all she can do is stare at Snow.

"You  _will_  talk to me, Regina. No more shutting people out or thinking that you have to be alone.” She’s gentle but firm, and she refuses to back down.

Silence stretches, the women eye to eye, and finally Regina turns calmly to the liquor cabinet and pulls out another bottle, tugging out the glass cork and taking another healthy pull before speaking.

"You told me to do this. With Robin."

There’s a confused blink and Snow shakes her head. “ _What_  are you talking about?”

"After the…after my  _mother_. You told me not to let anything hold me back, and I believed you. I  _listened_  to you.” There are hot and angry tears now, and she hates this, hates that she let herself hope, hates Snow, hates Emma.

Except that she doesn’t. She doesn’t hate anyone but herself.

Putting the bottle down that’s in her hand, Snow steps forward and speaks softly, not attempting to take the liquor again, but instead trying to get her step-mother to sit. “Tell me what you did, Regina.”

She’s not drunk enough for this, not by a long shot, so she upturns the scotch and takes two full swallows under Snow’s disapproving glare.

"I went to his camp. You told me my heart would find its way to happiness.  _You_ told me not to let anything hold me back, so I went to him. I went to Robin and I kissed him because he is what I’ve been afraid of since Daniel. This life that I got a glimpse of, of picnics and ice cream and promises of more, it’s not what I get. It’s not what I deserve.” She’s crying, her tears are hot and angry, her voice breaks.

"I won’t have that happy ending you seem to think everyone gets just because you have your prince. Life isn’t yielding for a woman with blood on her hands and a heart so black you couldn’t find it in a dark room. Why couldn’t you keep your advise and your false hope to yourself? Why did I let myself  _believe_  you?”

Her words break Snow. Take the half of her heart still in her chest and make it twist. She knows she didn’t do this to Regina, that her words from weeks ago will never be wrong, but she also knows that life has a cruel sense of humor when it comes to this woman who is now crying into her hands, the alcohol sitting on the table while Regina rocks and cries for the gossamer thin whispers of hope and love and want that are gone.

Speaking of hope seems as if it would only be a slap in the face, and so Snow says nothing, just tentatively reaches and pulls, bringing Regina in closer. To her surprise the other woman doesn’t resist, she is too broken and hurt to push away, and Snow ticks off ‘comfort Regina’ from the mental box of things she’s always wished she could do. Before the killing and the fighting, when she could see Regina crying in the gardens by her tree and she was unaware of her young new step-daughter, curious about why such a beautiful woman like Regina should be so sad.

But Snow knows now that even the biggest, strongest looking trees can be weathered underneath. Broken, sometimes dying. Not quickly but little by little, dimming and fading until there is nothing.

She has to give Regina something.

"You let yourself believe me, Regina, because you want to be loved. You’ve pretended for so long like it doesn’t matter. Shut people out, locked yourself away. But it does matter, having people. And maybe…maybe I’m not the person you want, but you have me. And Henry, and David, and baby Neal. You have us, because we are a  _family_.” For now, she leaves Emma’s name out, knows how to pick her battles and will quell that anger later.

Regina’s body shifts and pulls out of Snow’s grasp, eyes red and skin blotchy as she takes a breath and lets it out with a shuddering sigh. “I’m tired,” she admits, voice like sandpaper on gravel.

"I can help you to bed," Snow offers, moving to stand.

"No. I mean I’m  _tired_. I’m tired of this. Of losing.” She doesn’t move, just closes her eyes in a slow blink. “I’m not angry with Emma. Not Marian or Robin. I’m just tired.” She wipes at new tears, looking down now at her hands in her lap.

Sitting slowly again, Snow reaches out to take Regina’s hand and holds it between her own as if she can will her step-mother to believe her when she says she isn’t going anywhere. “Regina?” She waits, until her brown eyes focus as much as they can through the alcohol. “You are strong. And you have me. I’m  _right_  here. You saved my life once, and now you’ve saved my son’s. You need to tell him that story one day so that he knows. For a new generation of people who will know that  _you_  saved all of us.”

Regina doesn’t know what to think, doesn’t know how to process this, and so she simply nods slowly, too dumbfounded and drunk to think of a coherent reply.

"You will be here to tell him. Say it, Regina."

She realizes what Snow thinks she’s going to do and tries to wave it off. “Don’t worry. I can’t - “

"Say it, Regina." Snow is serious, and when Snow is serious Regina knows it’s best to humor her.

"I will be here."

That seems good enough for Snow, for now, and she allows Regina her liquor again. Then, she settles into the couch.

"I’ll be here, too."


End file.
